Wednesday, 8 January 2014

Internal strife in Persia as the army of The Great King, King of Kings fights the forces of the Great King, King of Kings to find out who really is the Great King, King of Kings. Played with Basic Impetus, currently the Ancient rules of choice, with three players each side and the initial forces determined at random.

The forces of the True King, Tel, ended up as primarily Infantry - Militia and Bows, with only his personal bodyguard and Matt's light Cavalry being mounted. The Pretender Tony's forces were all mounted including a force of Elephants commanded by Jim, and some heavy Cavalry commanded by Dave M.

The Bogus Great King hid behind his force of Elephants, a dangerous tactic if they got forced backwards into him. It was clear that they were going to concentrate their attack on our right flank, using their Heavy Cavalry against the Lights and the Elephants against the Militia and Bowmen, while leaving a token force of Median Noble Cavalry on the left side of the copice that split the terrain.

Wheeled my infantry to try and contain the enemies advance and to concentrate the bow fire. The opposing cavalry and light elements on the left engaged Matt's outmatched light cavalry. Eventually our cavalry was forced to break, but it had successfully slowed down and disordered that flank.

The clash of cavalry on the right turned out to be one sided as the Medians finally advanced against the Heavy Cavalry personally lead by the Great(est) King. The Medians came forward in a staggered formation so that when they finally clashed their lead element got caught disordered by mounted bow fire, their second element getting caught in the flank after it had tried to wheel, and their final element also took a pasting, all in the course of one turn.

With the destruction of the Noble cavalry the False Great King retreated off the field as his personal command had taken over half casualties, and his remaining commanders started negotiating switching sides to the True Great King.

The Elephants in the middle continued to advance, and our bowmen on the flanks advanced to get them in range. Elephants vs Bows turned out to be more one sided than expected, as the missile casualties kept forcing the Elephants back. Short Bows being much more effective against mounted in the up to 20MU range. The remaining Cavalry on both sides could do little about this as reorganisation of the respective forces took time.

So after this rebuff, both the remaining rebel commanders decided to switch allegiance to the one true Great King, King of Kings.
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